escapefromelba t1_iuc3mj8 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 4:51 AM

Reply to comment by powsandwich in The face of opposition to Question 1 admits proposed tax wouldn’t hurt him much: ‘I’m not struggling’ - The Boston Globe by petepont

The "tens of thousands" is from a misleading ad anyway that claimed that figure for people selling their house for $1m+. In reality, less than 1% of homes sold in Massachusetts meet that threshold

powsandwich t1_iud6eu5 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 1:07 PM

Yup, and they say it will “double” your taxes but if you sell for $1,000,001 you’re only paying 9% on that $1 and the existing flat 5% on the rest. The dishonesty in these ads is incredible

[deleted] t1_iuddl8g wrote on October 30, 2022 at 2:07 PM

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tacknosaddle t1_iudgjjp wrote on October 30, 2022 at 2:29 PM

You get to deduct the sales price, but there's also another deduction that is $500k for a couple (the linked article explains). Basically you'd most likely have to be selling a $2m home to even pay the higher rate on just small percentage of the home sale price.

PavlovaoftheParallel t1_iue2i2b wrote on October 30, 2022 at 5:03 PM

And all the major repairs and improvements are deductible as well.

They have literally just jumped on the house thing because they have nothing else to sell the “no” vote on.

MrRMNB t1_iuhw5q6 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:41 PM

But that's assuming the seller made $0 other income for the year, i.e. they'd pay a lot more in taxes for their regular job that year.

seriousnotshirley t1_iud0onv wrote on October 30, 2022 at 12:11 PM

And you’d have to have a net profit of $1 million, not just a home sale of 1 million.

tacknosaddle t1_iudg44f wrote on October 30, 2022 at 2:26 PM

>for people selling their house for $1m+

The article actually demonstrates how once you subtract the purchase price of the home and the $500k exemption for a couple most home sales wouldn't trigger it anyway.

They gave an example of someone selling a home for over $2m that the tax calculation dropped to $1.2m in taxable income. But since the tax is only for amounts over a million it would only be the $200k that gets taxed at the higher rate and would result in an increased tax bill of $8,000.

So cry me a fucking river that in a situation where you're pocketing $1.2m you have to pay an extra 0.7% in tax on that total amount (yes, zero-point-seven, it is less than a 1% increase in the total tax bill in that situation).